About you

Dear you

I am simple. I suppose it’s curious that a person who can deal in big words, big concepts and big ideas, can spin feelings out into words so that they seem complicated and huge, is willing to say, I know nothing much about feelings, only that I feel them.

I have a simple understanding of love. I love you or I don’t. I can’t force myself to, or force myself not to. I do not know how to. I am not inside you or anyone else, but I don’t know how any of the people in this world can be different. Isn’t it just like a spring that wells inside you, that you feel it and cannot deny it?

It doesn’t always last forever. You love and lose, we all know that. But having said that, I have never stopped loving a person; they have just chosen that I not love them any more, and I have had to live with it.

I do not know whether I love a lot of people or a few because I do not know how many is a lot. But I know I can enumerate them easily and I have no doubt about how I feel about any one of them.

I love my mum. I have loved her since I knew what the feeling even was and I do not know how she would make me stop, not that she would want to. She is a fine woman, and she made many sacrifices for me, but that is not why I love her. I do not love her because she would die in my place if I were dying, although I know for certain she would. She does not have to earn it in any way. I love my mum.

I love my dad. I have complicated feelings towards him but they are all based in love. He is a sensitive man, and that has made him hard to love, but I love him all the same. I have sometimes not respected him but love does not require respect, and anyway, you can misjudge respect. Love you cannot misjudge. It just happens and you go with it. I love my dad.

I love my sisters. They are fine women. But that is not why I love them. When I see one of my sisters, I want to hug them, to enfold them in my arms and keep the world from harming them ever. I want them to know they are loved in every moment of their lives and that there is not a second that they are not present for me. I love my sisters.

I love Zenella. I do not love her because she is sensitive, because she is funny or because she is clever, although she is sensitive, funny and clever. I love her because she makes forever a real word for me. I want everything for her, for all time. I regret that she must live a human span more than I regret anything else in this life. I want the world for her, wrapped up and delivered. I want what she wants, and more, because I fear that she will not want enough, yet I don’t know what enough even would be. I love Zenella.

I love Zenita. I do not love her because she is cheeky or because she makes me feel beloved with her smile, although she does that. I love her because she made me realise that love is not limited in me, that even though I could not believe I could find more love after Zenella, still I could. I love her because if I had the privilege of dying for Zenella, I would with my dying breath beg God for another life to give for her. I love Zenita.

I love Naughtyman because he is beautiful in every way to me. He is as handsome as a boy can be, and charming too. But of course that is not why I love him. I love him because he is gawky and clumsy but that moves me deeply in a way beyond words. I love him because he is fragile and lovely and yet that is not why I love him. I love him because he is my son. There is no other way to explain what I feel for him but that he is my boy. And I admit, this is a way you can love yourself, to have a son and love him. I love Naughtyman.

I love L. It is quite simple for me. We laugh together even now we are embittered and unhappy with each other. I love her for reasons I cannot begin to articulate, and when I try, they sound thin and unflattering: that I promised it and meant it, that she deserves love as much as anyone else, that I cannot help it. All true, yet none the truth. The truth is I still believe she is the person I loved simply and truly and I cannot stop believing it, and don't want to. I love her because I want still to be worthy to love her. I love L.

I love P. I love her because she was entirely unaware that she can be loved when I began to love her, and even now when she feels loved (and I am glad beyond measure that she does), she does not realise the good that is plain to see in her. I love naivety in anyone who exemplifies it. I love frailty, the ability to fail, to lose, and I love people who make me laugh. I love P.

I love S because she did not give me the opportunity to stop loving her and I became confused, so that I am left with the residue of love and no way to resolve it. So I know love can be painful and fractured, yet it is just as the Buddha said, a flower in the rubbish heap: if we can walk away from the destruction of our promises to each other with a feeling of love, we will never have failed. I love S.

I love A because if you want to know what a good person looks like, you could look at her and be content. She is a friend who will not desert you, will give you what she has and not complain at the hardship that giving entails. She is infallibly decent, a scale to weigh your thoughts and deeds in, yet she would not punish you for being wanting. I love A.

I love E because she is the love of my life. That is all. I love E.

D.

posted by Dr Zen @ 11:31 am